I feel that I’ve SEEN something about our present situation and its implications for who should be president next. Now I’m going to begin articulating what I have seen.

My plan is to present this as a series of brief essays, under the overall title of “It’s Got to Be Gore.” When I have published the whole sequence of parts –maybe four or five in number, methinks– I plan on then publishing the whole as a single essay.

If you think that the ideas developed in this “It’s Got to Be Gore” series are valid and important, I hope you will do what you can to get this series and/or the summation essay to Al Gore himself. Please think about the various connections you have and whether any of them might be enlisted to participate in a “six degrees of separation” to move these ideas onward closer to Gore’s inner circle and thus to Gore himself.

If we could reach Kevin Bacon in this way, surely it should be possible for the people convened here to advance these writings and their ideas to Gore via a whole panoply of routes.

But first, let me lay out what I’ve seen. I will begin in this installment by laying out what I believe is the extraordinary and vitally important challenge that America needs for its next leadership to be able to meet.

***********************

These have not been normal times in America. Under this Bushite regime, the soul of our country has been in danger like never before in its history.

Accordingly, in the now-beginning quest for new leadership here in America, the stakes are equally extraordinary. America must be reclaimed from these evil forces. The American people need to understand the meaning of this dark episode we’ve been passing through. And the damage inflicted on this country, and on the world, by these dark forces must be repaired.

America needs for the next president:

** To bring the best possible resolution of the mess the Bushites have created in Iraq.

** To refortify the Constitution which has been under assault from these Bushites—getting rid of unconstitutional laws, like the Military Commissions Act, and re-establishing a reasonable agreement about the checks and balances that establish the boundaries of the separation of powers.

** To reverse the corporate takeover of the federal government of the United States– a takeover which this Bushite regime advanced by a whole order of magnitude.

** To reconfirm America’s commitment to a respect for genuine knowledge, affirming our respect for the ferreting out of the truth through honest inquiry.

** To make the United States a leader, and not a pariah as this administration has made it, in the global process of creating an environmentally sustainable civilization, on that does not create destructive upheavals –such as climate change– that shake the foundations of the biosphere.

** To rededicate ourselves to the value of honesty in the relationship between leaders and led, recognizing how fundamental has been the betrayal of American democracy by this group of Bushite leaders who have worked assiduously to deceive the people and have embraced no commitment to an honest mutuality between government and people.

** To bring Americans of good will together, rather than work deliberately to drive them apart, as these Bushites continuously have.

**To make America trusted and appreciated by other countries in the world, and not held as these Bushites are with a combination of contempt and fear.

All these things are aspects of America that have been materially damaged. And America can waste no time in undertaking to repair this damage.

We are therefore coming to one of those moments –of which America has had perhaps only three or four before– when presidential leadership can make a profound difference with repurcussions, for better or for worse, for generations to come.

In the next installment of this series, I will indicate some of my reasons for believing that the alternatives to Gore are less promising for this historical moment, and will mostly focus on those alternatives. In the installment after that, I will focus more on the reasons Gore appears to me to be the man for this moment. And in the fourth projected installment, I will indicate how Gore could begin campaigning with a platform and a strategy which will not only help propell him into the presidency but will also provide America with more of the leadership it so desperately needs NOW and for the next two years.

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13 Responses to “It’s Got to Be Gore: Part I– The Challenge Facing the Next President”

Well, its finally happened, Andy, you’ve gone completely bonkers. Sad, really. Not that your list of aims is not endearing; it’s inspiring just reading them. But as for implementing them you are not thinking of Gore. You are thinking of Superman.

Do you suppose that any one man can change the historical trend that has existed for more than half a century, and put the historical toothpaste back in the historical tube? There can be better or worse presidents in 2008 but the simple truth of the matter is that the election isn’t going to change anything much.

Maybe if you lie down for a while and rest up you’ll dream of sweeter things than Gore. Not that anyone else is any better.

To Morley, I await Andrew’s second installment, but needless to say, your response begs a counterresponse.

Regarding Andy’s list, even if Gore, or whoever the next President is, only partially achieves those goals it will be worth it. You may be right that it is not realistic to expect any one man to fully achieve the goals listed in this posting, but it is not the achievement of the goals that are important, it is the striving and the drive to reach the goals that are important. Once we reach them, we will need to find more goals to motivate the good otherwise the evil will reappear to take back what it has lost, as has happened recently, as epitomized by this Bush Administration.

Realistically, America achieved it’s perception of good over many years, probably 60-100 years, ever since World War I or even longer. Whether America deserved that perception is another issue. Needless to say, it will take longer than 4 years for the next President to reestablish that perception of good that American once had. It will probably take more than 8 years, assuming the next President gets reelected. But it is a path that must be consciously taken in order for it to become a reality.

The current President had a vision and except for the nasty and irksome reality of the use of force and domestic spying (those darned leakers), he has made many strides to achieving that vision. In other words, for the Bushes, the end justify the means, unfortunately the means are not quite up to achieving the ends the the Bush Administration is seeking. Hence Bushes cruxifiction complex, he probably sincerely believes that he is being tested and that everything he has done was justified to reach the goals that he has that are just out of reach. Hence the criticism and investigations are the test that he must pass through to reach his glory. See my posting on another thread as to where his goals may have come from: http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=452, reference my reply posted on Feb 12th, 2007, at 12:04 pm.

No, Robin, it is not the striving, it is the achievement. Humanity is on a precipice here of being threatened with distruction by industrial pollution and thermonuclear war, both of which are being promoted by the US power-state. This must be changed by historical forces, not delusions that one man in an obsolete political system is going to make any significant difference. This is done by mobilizing the population, not by waiting for a political savior to appear.

I THINK GORE WILL ONLY RUN IF HIS SOUL MOVES HIM TO DO SO. HE IS BEING LED FROM INSIDE BY HIS OWN INNER GUIDANCE. HE TOOK AN INCREDIBLE BLOW IN LOSING THE ELECTION THE WAY HE DID.

IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN BASED ON OUR CURRENT FAULTY SYSTEM OF HOW THE POPULACE VOTES GET COUNTED AND VOTED BY THE ELECTORAL.

THAT SAID, ANY PERSON WHO IS PRESIDENT NEEDS ALL OF US HELPING HIM OR HER. WE MUST ALL BE COMMITED TO THE GOALS YOU HAVE SET FORTH, ANDY. WE MUST BE WILLING TO STAND BEHIND THEM WITH ACTIONS AND WORDS AND OUR LIVES IF NEED BE.

OUR ECONOMIC SYSTEM WILL FALTER FOR A TIME AS WE ADJUST. THE PRESIDENT MUST BE ABLE TO SEE A FAR GREATER VISION THAN WHAT MIGHT BE KEEPING THE STATUS QUO OF TOO MUCH INDULGENCE ON THE PART OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. HE/SHE MUST BE ABLE TO TRULY CALL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO A GREATER GOOD AND TO A WILLINGNESS TO WORK TOGETHER, COLLABORATE AND COOPERATE, TO CREATE A STABLE AND LOVING ENVIRONMENT FOR ALL CITIZENS.

THE MEDIA WILL HAVE TO MAKE MAJOR CHANGES IN ITS AMERICA IS RIGHT AND THE REST OF THE WORLD IS WRONG APPROACH.

I LOOK FORWARD TO MORE DIALOGUE AND YOUR ONGOING WRITINGS ON THIS TOPIC.

Responding to Morley and Robin: I would agree with Morley that it is the achievement that matters most, and I would agree with Robin that the striving is also important, because the sense of purpose and the affirmation of values in themselves do achieve some things. (Consider how it feels now to have an administration that, in six years, has shown absolutely NO CONCERN to achieve anything good for the country.)

With respect to the idea, from Morley, that “This is done by mobilizing the population, not by waiting for a political savior to appear,” I would say: beware of false dichotomies.

The leadership is not going to just appear, and the public is not going to be automatically mobilized. Good leadership can appear in our system only when the public mobilizes to demand and support it. (See note, below.) And the public will not mobilize effectively without some kind of leadership to catalyze the mobilization.

A propos of the essential need for public mobilization, consider the following poll result just released from CBS:

the public is divided when it comes to what Congress should do about the war.

While 63 percent disapprove of the president’s plan to send more troops to Iraq, there’s a nearly even split on whether Congress should pass a nonbinding resolution expressing disapproval of the troop buildup: 44 percent favor passage of the measure and 45 percent are opposed.

This impacts the “leadership” that we’re getting out of Congress, or not getting. And if the public were mobilized so that the percentage in favor of even this limp-wristed nonbinding resolution was up around 65 percent, the dance in Congress would change considerably.

And of course the more effectively we have leaders speaking the truth to the public about these things –and the media covering them properly– the more the public opinion will move in the right direction.

One man, a President and a willing party, the Democrats, can make a difference. It helps quite alot if the people are behind them. A President and a party, especially if they have filibuster proof majorities can make very substantial changes regarding polluting industries, promotion of clean energy technologies, world leadership in this area, and a rational approach to nuclear disarmament and trust and verification. One can argue the probability of this occurring. I for one do not feel it is totally absurd to assign a non-zero probability to this. With a few leaders in the Senate and House and a good leader in the Presidency may very well result in many wonderful things happening in the government regulation of utilities, autmakers and all extractive industries.

I think someone with a vision that Al Gore has, or maybe has, could really be a phenomenally popular candidate. I think there is probably a real hunger for someone to talk about making a better world from the young people who are coming of age and are of voting age right now*. And Mr. Gore could really tap into this. The trouble is, could he get away with it from within the Democratic party? I would really like to see him run as a Green party candidate, but then you have the problem that that sort of insures a republican victory. But if he is as passionate about peace and the constitution as he is about global warming and the environment in general, it might be really interesting. I mean, what I am sort of thinking about, is, maybe he should say, ok, I’ll be a candidate, I’ll put my hat in the ring. But I won’t submit to being a robot running for the presidency being controlled by the democratic party. I’ll just say whatever I feel like and if that causes me to loose, so be it. So could he win the democratic primary if he did that? If he could, and once he was the democratic candidate, they let him continue in this free-wheeling way, then maybe. But once that happened (he was the democratic candidate) there would be all kinds of pressure put on him to WIN. So I don’t think it would work, sigh…

* – I bet the young are so sick and tired of hearing how the baby boomers have totally messed up the environment, are creating this huge deficit that THEY are going to have to pay off, etc., etc. They are thinking, as soon as we can get someone into office who sees what we see, all this nonsense can end and we can start living reasonably. The young people today have grown up with the internet. They KNOW that the crap coming out of the boob tube is total propagandistic garbage. But they still have to live under this oppressive and moronic system that their parents/grandparents are used to living under.

And I am really no longer much concerned about those 20%, or so, fanatic, fundamentalist right wingers, and Bush supporters. The fanatics will always be there, and they are all exactly the same; only the cause differs. (Although the numbers are much higher now then in better times)

It was the same with the Germans who adored Hitler, and kept his photo in their house, and worshipped him.
The thing is, that the second Adolf was history, or dead, the same people didn’t waste a moment grieving him, and they immediately attached themselves to some other cause, religion, or philosophy.

He was forgotten overnight, and the rest of those who supported him with less enthusiasm, they changed, and learned, and adjusted to whatever came next.

Last summer, I spent a day at Chautauqua Institution, where I saw Al Gore speak at the Ampitheatre (seats over 2500 plus people, not counting the hords of people who stood all around the outside area). There was a standing ovation from all of the people that went for over 4 minutes. He spoke about Global Warming. He then went over to another area so that he would be able to sign autographs for people. (By the way, he has a wonderful sense of humor). For almost 45 minutes I stood with my 14 year old grandson waiting for his autograph. Brooks (my 13 year old grandson) had worked for Kerry in the previous campaign, and who intends to run for President when he becomes an adult) and I went to get his autograph. Brooks gave him his business card which said “Future President of the United States”. and…I begged Mr Gore to please run for the President in this next election. When I said that everyone close to us clapped and yelled..Al Gore for President….